Time TV writer James Poniewozic has a thoughtful post where he wonders about the reasons why NBC might be considering dumping Leno out of the 10pm slot and moving him to 11:30 if that happens.

I've been doing a lot of "thinking out loud" about it, and for now, that's about all there is to be done. I found some of Poniewozik's thoughts intriguing, including:

Rip the Band-Aid Off. As everyone noted before the Leno show launched, filling in the five-night crater of a failed show would be ugly regardless. And with almost no other successful shows to build new hits off of, NBC's 10 p.m. may do no better, or worse, in the short term. Maybe better just to hit rock-bottom now, so that whatever the network unveils for fall has nowhere to go but up. (It can't get worse. Or can it?) And it may have been thus prodded by...